A prior art cleaning apparatus for a pick up lens of a compact disc player using a front base to carry the compact disc record is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,817,078.
In the prior art, the pick up lens cleaner operates as follows.
a; First, a driving gear is rotated, so a spiral spring attached to the driving gear is wound to store energy for reverse-rotation of the driving gear.
b; when the pick up lens cleaner is inserted into a compact disc player body, a stop release spring on the cleaner housing is pushed by an arm of the player body. Then, the driving gear is released from having been stopped from reverse rotation.
c; When the driving gear starts to rotate in force because of the stored energy from the wound spiral spring, a pick up lens cleaner brush starts to rotate. Then, a planet gear is used as a transmitting gear.
In the prior art, the rotational force of the cleaner brush relies entirely on the stored energy from the wound spiral spring, the diameter of the spiral spring being too big while the construction of the cleaner is so complicated.